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Dear
Angus, Charo, Abdulla and Zira,
On
the advice of a good friend Nic Jooste, we have
just completed a 3 day
charter with the Neptune crew and I would like
to thank the team for the
professionalism and support to have made our 3
days a terrific experience.
The results speak for themselves as over the 3
days we caught 15 sails, 1
Blue, 1 Stripped and 1 Black Marlin. A few days
that many anglers only
dream about.......There is no doubt that it was
through the experience and
support of the crew we were so successful. Through
good tactics, great
sighting and quick reaction we were onto the Marlin
and then through great
coaching, by the crew, we were able to bring in
the fish which were tagged
and released as quickly as possible. It was enormously
satisfying to be able
to tie up with a full mast of sails flying everyday.
I
would highly recommend the Kingfisher team to
anyone considering Kenya for
blue water fishing. Everything ran well from the
start of the day and it is
a credit to the team on the boat as well as the
logistics team that make it
happen behind the scenes.
A
special thank you to Katrina for her advice and
assistance.
Great
work to the crew of Neptune - Angus, Charo, Abdulla
and Zira - thank
you once again and I will send some of the photographs
through.
Thank
you
Richard and Nicholas Stedman
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KINGFISHER
NEWS UPDATE 22ND JANUARY 2012
GOOD
FISHING CONTINUES BUT TOO MANY BOATS ARE LIEING IDLE ON
THE MOORINGS!!
Dear
All,
The
good fishing that we have been experiencing for quite
a while continued last week but unfortunately too many
days saw boats sitting on their moorings. This time last
year we had at least four boats fishing every day but
this year is a very different story and what a shame it
is as we are having such good fishing.
The weather is much the same as the previous week with
hot clear days and the wind blowing from the north. All
is calm as far as security goes with no incidents or reports
of any goings on.
The
Casino Tournament came to an end on 15th January and it
turned out to be a very tightly contested affair! Unreel
who had quite a comfortable lead after the first day was
pushed to the wire by Tarka and managed to hang on to
first place by just a couple of kilos! Ol jogi came in
third and Alleycat fourth to complete the top four positions.
There were a total of 26 marlin and 65 sailfish caught
between15 boats. All in all it was a very successful and
well run tournament. Kingfishers entrants, Snark and Neptune
finished 5th and 9th respectively with both boats catching
striped marlin on the second day. Snark was fished by
Bas and Edwin Kanters and Adi, while Neptunes team was
Herald Van Ieperen and Edward Ebbers. Con Jooste had a
very good day on Eclare with a striped marlin and a sailfish
caught on fly. Con fought the striped marlin for over
two hours before getting it in range of the tag pole.
Snowgoose fishing with Wilfred Van Laarhven and Roland
Roy had a manic day with 10 sailfish.
On
the 16th none of our boats found marlin but Con reached
a milestone on Eclare when he caught his 100th sailfish
on fly. All but 14 of these were caught in Kenyan waters
and the majority on Kingfisher boats. The highlights of
this feat were undoubtedly when he caught 28 in 5 days
in 2008 and also the sailfish which he hunted for all
day to complete his Grand Slam on fly in 2010.
Well done Con.
On
the 17th Neptune, fishing with our good friends from Belgium
Alfons ,Rudi and Georges had a good day with a black and
a blue marlin and some bait fish. Eclare had another good
day fly fishing with the Jooste family. This time it was
Cons brother Nic and his wife Angela who got in on the
action with Angela catching her first sailfish on fly
and Nic getting 4 to finish on 5 on fly for the day!
Neptune
got a striped marlin and 2 sailfish on the 18th for the
Werner Wirtz group . Eclare fishing with Herald and Edward
had 11 sailfish while Snowgoose had 5 and Tina 1.
On
the 19th Eclare was our only boat that caught a marlin
with a stripey as well as three sailfish. Neptune,Snowgoose
and Snark had 3, 4 and 6 sailfish respectively.
Tina,
fishing with Wilfred and Roland had a very good day on
the 20th tagging a nice black marlin of 100 + kgs and
5 sailfish.Eclare who was out with Peter Hoffman and co
added yet another marlin to Peters over all tally when
they tagged and released a striped marlin as well as 3
sailfish. Snowgoose had another day with 10 sailfish,
this time fishing with the Wirz group. .
Only
Neptune,Snowgoose and Snark were out on the 21st and Neptune
had the most successful day with 16 sailfish. They caught
the majority of these fish just outside the Watamu mlango(entrance).
Snowgoose and Snark fished off Malindi where a lot of
fish had been seen on previous days but it was slower
today with Snowgoose catching two sailfish and Snark just
some small fish.
Snowgoose
had a brilliant day today catching 1 black marlin,2 striped
marlin and 6 sailfish to record another Grand Slam.
They were fishing with loyal clients Herbert and Monica
Lewald who have been fishing with us for many years now.
Neptune fishing with Richard Segers and Arie Theunissen
had 8 sailfish.
Thats
it from us here for another week.
Take
care,
Adrian
KINGFISHER
NEWS UPDATE 22ND MAY 2011-SEASON REVIEW 2010/11-
WE
TAKE A LOOK AT THE UPS AND DOWNS OF 2010\11 SEASON
AND LOOK TOWARDS 2011\12.
Dear
All,
All
is well here in Malindi and like the rest of the world
we did not blow up and disappear yesterday!!
Some of you may be wondering why there havent been
any fishing reports for well over a month now. Well basically
fishing has come to a bit of a standstill here and we
havent had a charter since the 6th May. There are
two boats sitting on the mooring raring to go but there
just arent the people around. To make it even worse
the weather is ideal for fishing. Although it has been
raining it does not rain for long and the days are calm.
Reports from a few dinghies that are commercial fishing
would suggest that there are some big yellowfin on the
banks as well as the odd black marlin and the usual kingfish
and wahoo. Normally May is a very windy and wet month
and that is why hotels close up and boats stop fishing.
However, this month and in fact for the last four years,
we have experienced weather that is more associated with
March than May. Looking out of Ocean Sports two days ago
the sea was flat calm and the notoriously savage mlangodidnt
have a ripple on it let alone a breaker! Hotels havent
had to board up the windows, which is what normally happens
at this time of year. Why this change in weather is happening
nobody really knows and whether it will revert to how
it was is another question. We are hoping that the wind
isnt going to come later on in July\August when
bookings start again!
We
may not be fishing but needless to say work has not stopped.
Neptune, Eclare and Tina are still in dry dock with the
former being stripped to a bare shell. We hope to install
the new engines in the next two weeks and then everything
else will go back in around them. Neptune should look
very sleek and go like a rocket this season. Eclare is
very nearly ready and should go back into the water within
the next three weeks. She has had a hull and inside re
spray and is looking good. Once Eclare is back in, Snowgoose
will come out for a bit of attention. Most of the crew
are on a well earned break and will be back soon fully
charged for another season.
Snowgoose
and Snark fished quite a number of days at the end of
April and beginning of May. Most days saw them come back
with at least one red flag. Snowgoose, fishing with Mr
and Mrs Percival caught a 40 kg sailfish on the 23rd April.
A number of giant trevally were tagged and released over
the two week period as well as an assortment of other
game fish species. Snark has seven days booked in June
and we are hoping that she will find some fish out there.
June can be a very good black marlin month so fingers
crossed.
We
have a few days booked for July and August but considering
what good fishing can be had, over these two months we
would hope for a few more. September\October once again
is looking like a very quiet period. We have introduced
some packages over this period to try and encourage more
of you to come. Information can be found on the Kingfisher
Villas web site http://fishandsafarikenya.com/kingfishervillas
HOME .HTM or on our website www.kenyasportfishing.com
.
We also want to encourage more jigging\popping enthusiasts
to come over this period, as we feel it is an ideal time
for these methods and more and more anglers want to jig
or pop.
November
is looking a bit healthier but we still have quite a few
days available. December is very quite, apart from a couple
of boats at the beginning of the month. We still have
availability over the high season of January\February\March
but bookings are starting to come in. If you are looking
to come over the high season I would suggest that you
get your bookings in ASAP.
Now
that the season is officially over it gives us a chance
to look back at the ups and downs of what was without
a doubt a roller coaster of a season. After a slow start
in August the season never really picked up too much momentum,
not compared to the two previous seasons anyway. The sailfish
run wasnt bad but again there were no where near
the amount of fish we saw in 2008\2009 and 2009\10. Marlin
figures are way down on the two seasons with the
top boats just hitting fifty, where as the season before
saw two boats reach the century mark. Having said that
we are comparing it to two exceptional seasons and if
you look at the figures for the last fifteen years this
season would definitely be in the top half. February which
is normally our number one month, produced some very difficult
fishing mainly due to currents going the wrong way and
dirty water etc, etc. Like the season before early January
was brilliant for stripies but this year the small blues
did not appear. The first two weeks of March was once
again a very exciting time with some big fish being seen
and caught. Unreel had a beautiful black marlin of 860
lbs which equals the biggest black boated in Kenya and
Tega had a 600 lb blue later in the month. Whilst on the
subject of big fish Eclare tagged and released a very
big black of 600 lbs plus in February and just two days
before that they lost an even bigger fish in the Malindi
Billfish Tournament after five hours. A number of black
marlin between the 400 500 lb range were caught
this season. In fact most of the blacks caught were good
fish of over 300 lbs and it was rare to see a small black.
Neptune was once again our top marlin and sailfish boat
this season with 48 and 355 respectively. I should think
she will be in the top three overall in the country for
marlin and she will once again be the top sailfish boat.
Snowgoose and Eclare did very well on marlin with 38 and
31 while Tina had an exceptional sailfish season.
Malachite
was not exceptionally busy last season and we are hoping
that this season she will do more days doing what she
is supposed to do, inshore fishing and shallow water jigging
etc. She has been fitted with an echo sounder and has
a hand held GPS. Inshore fishing has always been something
we have wanted to perfect, ever since we got Malachite
but it has been a bit of a struggle in finding the right
areas close to home. We shall persevere however!
We
were pleased to see a few more yellowfin tuna around this
season. In early September large schools of fish between
20 to 30 kgs appeared off Malindi and boats were catching
up to 10 a day. The canyons off Watamu then became home
to large numbers of school size yellowfin. However at
one time it became quite an art to get any of these fish
in whole. As soon as one hooked up you could just about
guarantee the fish being taken by a shark. Whether it
was a bull, a bronze whaler or a spinner the tuna would
be nailed. Quite a few shark were landed, especially if
the tuna was on a rapala. Talking of rapalass we
had a very exciting day on the canyons in September on
Snarks first day fishing of the season. It was just
meant to be a test run for a few hours but we ended up
staying out the whole day as it was so active. We lost
a marlin on a rapala and then got one which was also on
a rapala and got a load of tuna and wahoo. That was my
first marlin on a rapala in twelve years of fishing!
Most
other species numbers were on par with the season before
apart from kingfish which were much more abundant this
season than last. It was interesting to see that like
the season before large numbers of wahoo appeared on the
banks\canyons in mid March. They moved in as the monsoon
was changing and the weather was really calm and then
as soon as the wind picked up they disappeared.
Our
boats participated in a number of tournaments this year
and although we had a slow start it all came right in
the end with some exceptional results. Snark, fishing
with Guido van de Steen and Herald van Iperen took second
place in the Casino Malindi Tournament which was held
on the 15th and 16th January. They ended up with 2 black
marlin and 1 sailfish over the two days.
Snark,
which most of you will know is one of the slowest boats
around showed that speed isnt everything by winning
the prestigious Fly 540 sponsored Watamu Festival on the
5th and 6th March. Fishing amongst a field of 22 boats
Andy Atkins, myself and Adi managed a stripey and a sailfish
on the first day and then a sailfish on the second day
which was enough to sneak in first.
A few days later, Neptune made it an excellent week for
us by winning the Friends of Kenya tournament. Held out
of Hemingways resort the Friends of Kenya is a very popular
and well run tournament and for Rick Le Monnier, Don Lafferty
and Andy de Mare to win it was a very good effort indeed.
The last tournament our boats participated in was the
Penn Challenge which is organized by the Fishing Dutchmen.
Not surprisingly it was made up of mainly Dutch and a
few Belgian fishermen. A total of 13 boats took part with
Snark finishing as the second best boat and Snowgoose
third.
All
in all the 2010\11 season was a very busy and successful
one for us. We could have done with a few more fish but
we cant control that unfortunately. Our skippers,
crew, mechanics and the rest of the staff worked extremely
hard throughout the season to ensure that everything went
as much to plan as possible. We hope that this coming
season will be another busy one and that we will see many
of you back here again.
Take
care,
Adrian

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